Ask for what you want and you might just get it.
That's what Peter Maides, College of New Caledonia English instructor, did and the president of the National Film Board (NFB) showed up in Prince George Wednesday to connect with the people in the community.
Several months ago the NFB announced online they would be touring Canada and Maides told them in a comment that Prince George should be a stop on the tour.
"I said that somewhat sarcastically and they very politely told me they would be coming," Maides said with a smile.
He had just left a breakfast meeting with NFB president Tom Perlmutter and about nine other people from throughout the community. Representatives from the Prince George Public Library, the University of Northern British Columbia, Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, the RCMP, Francais Le Cercle Des Canadiens and people from the business sector were in attendance.
"People need to know that B.C. doesn't stop at Hope," said Maides. "The National Film Board website has thousands of films and documentaries that people can access for free and the NFB speaks for us, not at us."
Perlmutter said he felt so connected with the people at the breakfast meeting Wednesday.
"Their enthusiasm is wonderful," he said. "It was such a treat for me. I get so much out of these meetings."
There is no other organization in the world that is a public sector producer and distributor of audio visual work, Perlmutter explained.
"I just feel very passionate about how much the film board has to be rooted in the country. As an institution it gets its energy from that kind of connection, from listening to the stories across the country. I am very personally committed to that.
"I am here to hear the stories, we're here to be engaged with the community but we're not policy-makers, we're not social workers and we're not academics, we're story tellers and we're trying to find ways to tell the stories of the changing landscape of who we are as a country."
There is a short documentary (between 15 and 30 minutes) being made in Prince George right now about a Mosque, said Perlmutter.
"There is a sense of something vital, something different, something profound, something beautiful and you just want to share that," Perlmutter said of the creation of the film.
It's always been a big issue to make the NFB accessible to all Canadians so there is now an interactive state-of-the-art digital transformation that has taken place with the launching a range of interactive digital projects and expanding the NFB's e-cinema network.
"We have about 2,000 films available online and it's a remarkable range of work," said Perlmutter. "It's work that allows us to discover the country in a different kind of way."
The NFB has been nominated for 70 Oscars, the most nominations an organization has ever received outside of Hollywood's production teams.
To check out what the NFB has to offer visit www.nfb.ca.
